We are going to work together as speakers, trainers and consultants, showing others how to use social media for economic development.

There are a number of ideas and products in the works including interactive training packages and possibly paid membership to a Web-supported community.

Here at the beginning, Becky will focus largely on small town entrepreneurship and I’ll focus on what we call “Tourism 2.0” – how travel and tourism can use social media tools to raise awareness of their destinations.

We see them as part of a greater economic development whole for any size of town or city, anywhere.

As a small town entrepreneur herself, Becky noticed lately that many “Shop Local” campaigns seemed to be targeted to larger cities, and she had specific ideas about how to execute such a project in a small town.

Being Becky, she went ahead and wrote the book on it: a step-by-step guide to starting a “Shop Local” campaign in a small town. I recommend it for any business person, especially in this tough economy.

I assure you that as we launch the rest of our business, you’ll hear about it on this blog, from me on Twitter or from @BeckyMcCray on Twitter.

Author Linda didn’t feel that the place met her expectations for a creative experience for her kids. There was no “wild blogger” ranting or digital spittle – she was simply disappointed in what visitors get there for their money and time.

Since she linked to the Crayola establishment (they should see that by monitoring inbound links/backlinks) and wrote about them as “Crayola Factory in Easton, Pennsylvania” (which any decent Google Alert should catch) I would expect a sharp PR/marketing person from the company to check out the post and leave a comment.

You know, at least something along the lines of “We’re sorry you were disappointed, we’ll take your ideas into consideration, we have a facility redesign in the works, blah blah.”

Figure the odds that anyone actually does that.

A quick glance would show anyone that Linda’s blog isn’t the home of some pajama’d nutcase. She has active and engaged readers who are interested in her family travel topic.

The business communications world often still doesn’t get it, so the review will probably sit there, unanswered.

To me, that’s a lost opportunity for Crayola to reach out to customers and possibly turn a negative impression into a positive one.